Performance of Authenticity

In this book the author analyzes the autobiographies of Baby Dodds, Sidney Bechet, Pops Foster, and Lee Collins by integrating social, psychological, and literary theories. He argues that the autobiographies of New Orleans jazz musicians construct a sense of self and the collective grounded in ideas about authenticity.

Teófilo Espada-Brignoni is assistant professor of psychology at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus.

Table of Contents Chapter 1: Subjectivation, Music, and Autobiography Chapter 2: Storying Jazz: Bechet, Dodds, Collins, and Foster Chapter 3: An Ethics of Authenticity Chapter 4: Being a Jazz Man Chapter 5: "Growing into the Music" Chapter 6: Wise Old-Timers Chapter 7: Stylizing the Self: The Mechanic and the Domestic